The Road To Amber
by Etrigan316
Summary: Vince and Amia of a nearby shadow earth find a way into Amber that has eluded them for a long time.
1. Chapter 1

I sat wearily in the classroom listening to my professor's boring lecture, droning on and on like a robot programmed to annoy the hell out of anyone who would listen. It got so bad I couldn't listen to her anymore, an hour had been more then I was capable of without loosing my sanity. After all, there was only a half-hour to go. I thought about more constructive things to do. I thought of things not describable to anyone but me. Places that, without experiencing my life, would never mean anything to anybody. I thought of Amber; Amber... if only such a place could really exist. If only I could escape this shadow earth and go anywhere I wanted to and do anything I wished. I frequently thought of this and it made me sick to my stomach every time I did so because such a world cannot exist. I almost hated Amia for introducing me to this beautiful collection of extraordinary novels. Amber is something only explainable by experiencing it through Roger Zelazny's masterpiece: The Great Book of Amber.  
  
Amia was a girl of eighteen, the same age as I. Her birthday was only fifteen days after my own. I had brown hair and brown eyes and was overweight while she had hair the color of the sun at sunset and blue eyes that shined like crystals and she was as skinny as a twig. We knew each other almost as well as we knew ourselves. As far as our relationship was concerned, we weren't dating, and had no reason to. If we were to date each other, it would ruin the relationship we had built for more then ten years as friends. I thought she was very beautiful but so did every other guy, but I saw her on a whole different level then anyone else. We were far from the popular crowd and had shifted through many hardships together including the deaths of some of our friends. We shared similar interests and had many similarities. We both knew exactly what we were going to be when we graduated college. Not what we wanted to be, but what we would be. We were just that way. I had always liked to consider ourselves as "enlightened".  
  
I was always thinking about Amber and everything that occurs there. After I thought about it, I'd look at Amia and she'd look at me and we'd sigh. Then, I think without her knowledge, I would try to move through shadow, with no success. What would you expect? Of coarse I couldn't move through shadow, I wasn't related to anyone in the kingdom of Amber. I knew both of my parents and their parents and everything was as it should be, normal. I'd often wonder what if Amber really existed and The Great Book of Amber was meant to guide people to it. I WISH SHE'D JUST SHUT UP! I jumped, someone had just shouted out in the class. I turned and looked around the room and saw nothing out the ordinary, it seemed no one else had noticed it. I looked at the teacher still flailing her trap, and finally my eyes rested on Amia, her own eyes reflecting anger, then confusion, and then fear. I knew as well as she that those words had come from her, yet she had not spoken them. On her desk was a picture of me, from one of those yearly professional pictures we have to do in school every year. She had been looking at it and thinking about... what had she been thinking? We both looked at each other for a long time, perhaps we were trying to sort out what had just happened, but I came to no conclusion.  
  
The bell rung to dismiss the class but neither Amia nor I budged from our desks. We continued looking at each other, confusion ran through my head. The professor had also left the classroom for her hall duty without noticing us, after all, it was a Friday. The silence was finally broken by Amia. "Hey, Vince, did you hear me a while ago, when I said, or at least I thought I said, I mean when... well, now I'm all mixed up. I didn't think I had said anything until you looked at me, but it was only you that seemed to hear me and the professor was right there. Then I realized that I really didn't say anything at all, yet you seemed to hear me anyway, and it was while I was staring at your picture." She stopped suddenly as if there was something else she was going to say and silence once again filled the empty classroom until I was finally able to find my voice. "You said or thought or whatever 'I wish she'd shut up', right?" She stared at me, smiled, and in one quick motion dragged me from my seat into the now empty hallway. "Do you realize what I did? Do you?" she asked me excited, "I must have gotten in touch with you, the way they do in Amber, you know like using your picture as a trump card!" If only this could be possible, yet I could not help but hope. "Amia," I said, "Try to move through shadow, come on, if you can use a picture to trump me then you can move through shadow." She concentrated hard on the hallway, her great effort visible by her face turning red, but the hallway made no change. Amia stopped and thought about it. "Of coarse, because I have not walked through the pattern, I cannot easily travel through shadow." Suddenly an idea came to me. "Amia, there is a picture of Amber on the cover of the book, lets both use that to try to trump to Amber directly." She nodded in agreement. We ran through the hallway together, out the door, and out of the school. She decided to drive me to her house, because it was closer, and I left my car parked in the school parking lot. On the way there I wondered if I also possessed any of these abilities, for it had been Amia only who had trumped me, I had taken no part of it and had not contributed to the process. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at her house. My doubts were driven away by the excitement that overwhelmed me.  
  
When we pulled up to her driveway we got out of the car and quite literally ran into the house. Her parents greeted her and looked at me with particular interest being as they had never seen me before and that I was running after their daughter into her bedroom. I closed the door behind me when I reached Amia's room and a great amount of noise followed: bumps, thuds, curses, and shouts, all caused by the frantic search for the book. I would have paid money to see the looks on her parent's faces, but I was far too concerned about the whereabouts of The Great Book of Amber. We tossed book after book off of the shelf and across the room. One of Amia's precious leather copies of her favorite book was torn in half while being tossed aside but she didn't even flinch. I finally cried out in triumph as I located the book. We both sat on her bed and looked at each other, making a silent agreement that we were both going to proceed, even if there was no going back. I concentrated on the cover, envisioning it as a real place allowing it to become three dimensional, then leaving my position and coming into this place, making sure to take Amia with me. It almost seemed as if I was in two places at once, staring into the mirror as the face, and then looking back on myself as the reflection. At first I was staring into the cover, seeing the real Amber, and then I was looking back into her room at what would have been behind me. I suddenly realized by coming through, that the book had dropped on the floor of her and I had a perfect view of the door to her room. It opened slowly and Amia's mother peered in. She threw the door open and it hit the wall, making a loud bang. She then let out a scream. I finally noticed Amia by my side, sitting on the ground and rocking back and forth cradling her head, it was bleeding. That was when I realized that it was I who was keeping this door between both worlds open. I panicked when I saw Amia's father enter the room. I closed my eyes and looked away, trying to break the door I had created. I closed off my mind, feeling nothing. When I opened my eyes again, Amia's parents were still there and I realized my attempts had failed. Then I noticed how close Amia's father was to me. He was holding the book staring with a hateful glare. He was looking directly at me. Suddenly I felt a heavy force hit me at the back of my head and I fell to the ground. The whole scene vanished as I felt myself loose consciousness.  
  
Disclaimer: All characters excluding Vince, Amia, Raine, and Aaron belong to Roger Zelazny. I do not in anyway own any ties to the Great Book of Amber other than owning a copy of the beautiful book.  
  
Please feel free to e-mail me with any comments regarding my story unless you intend to flame me. 


	2. Chapter 2

When I awoke, I found myself alone in some type of infirmary. It had a desk across the room with files and instruments on it. It looked like an ordinary hospital, but in some ways it was very advanced. Monitors to both sides of me showed readouts for things I had never even heard of. Yet the feel of the room and the architecture of the walls alluded to the realization that I was in some sort of castle. It was then that I started reviewing the day's previous occurrences in my head from Amia trumping me to our arrival in Amber. I sat up in the infirmary bed groggily. The uncomfortable feeling hospitals gave me were unfortunately present even in Amber. I suddenly noticed that I was dressed in a green robe. The fabric felt finer than silk and provided me with comfortable warmth. My other clothes were nowhere in direct sight. It was then that I began to wonder about the fate of my companion Amia and what, or who had struck me on the head. As if on cue, a person wearing white scrubs walked into the room looking very grim. He was a man about eight foot six and had an extra arm coming out of him. This was all of the conformation I needed to know that I had at least trumped to another shadow, but I was still not certain if I had trumped directly to Amber. The doctor looked at me quickly and turned away. Then I heard him talking in a language I did not understand. At first I thought he was only talking to himself, but then I noticed that he was talking directly to a card. I tried to position myself on the bed to a spot where I could see the face on the card, but that was when I finally became aware of the many wires that connected me to the hospital monitors. They seemed to restrain my movement the more I moved about. I finally gave up and let myself recline so that my head was on the pillow again. l watched the doctor very closely and listened for any English word or more specifically, an English name. Then, quite abruptly, the doctor stopped talking for perhaps seven minutes. At first I thought he was done altogether, but he kept looking at the card. I guess the person he was talking to had a lot to say. Then, the doctor nodded, pulled a chart from the desk, and was gone in a rainbow prismatic effect through the card. The room was silent save the occasional beeping of the monitors. I thought about things for a while, sorting out thoughts in my head. I was trying to decide whether or not I should try to escape when a light knock came at the door.

I assumed that whoever was on the other side of the door was seeking my permission to enter, so I said"Come in". The door cracked open and I saw a green eye peer in. Then, after an appropriate time, the door opened the rest of the way and a woman entered looking about the same age that I was. " I hope you are feeling better." she said, not quite meeting my eyes. I didn't answer her right away, I couldn't. I was at a loss for words from her immense beauty. She was pale and slender. Her silky red hair went down to the gray and red dress she was wearing. Her top was in a similar color scheme. As I looked her over, she finally halfway looked at me before shifting her gaze on one of the monitors. "Well", she said"I suppose you are wondering what happened to you and where you are. But I can only tell you the part I saw. " For the first time she looked at me in the eyes. "I was returning from the Forrest of Arden from a routine patrol route on my horse, Dark Star when I caught a glimpse of the rainbow-prismatic effect that comes from trumping from one place to another. I rode over to see who it was and I saw you and this other girl and a huge trump doorway that was getting bigger. I then noticed the girl was unconscious and assumed it was you who was keeping contact. So... I sort of panicked and to make a long story short, hit you on your head with my crossbow." She said the last part very quickly and diverted her eyes to the monitors again. Since l was still a bit dreary, it took me a while to absorb her words.

I finally realized she was looking uncomfortable, so I chose then to speak for the first time"Would you like to sit down" I offered. To my delight, she did; she pulled a chair close to the bed so we wouldn't have to talk across the room. "Well I guess I should explain myself, but it is going to be very difficult. I don't know exactly where to start. Okay first of all, we are in Amber correct" She nodded. "Very good, okay first of all, my name is Vince and I come from what Corwin, Random, and Merlin call 'shadow earth'…." I would have continued but my lovely guest suddenly got up and paced around my bed"I am sorry to cut you off" she said"but I noticed you speak of my uncles and my cousin very familiarly, yet they are known to very few on your shadow earth. How did you come across this information" I sat back in the bed annoyed. "I was just getting there." "Oh, Sorry" she sat back down. "Hey wait, I told you my name, don't you think it's fair that you tell me yours" She smiled and blushed, her cheeks matching the color of her red hair. "Oh, very well, my name is Raine." I smiled to myself. "What a beautiful name, Lady Raine. It is a pleasure to meet you." I sat up a little and took her hand to kiss it. She smiled to me and responded "The pleasure is all mine Vince from shadow earth. Now, if you don't mind, please continue." "Okay now that the formalities are out of the way, this is the part that is going to confuse the hell out of you, but here goes nothing. There is a novel in my shadow world called The Great Book of Amber written by Roger Zelazny. To my world, it is only fiction, but to you, it would be a written document from the time of the attempted assassination on Corwin's life to Merlin's discovery of Corwin in Chaos." I paused here to allow this to sink in. Raine had this look of utter shock, not confusion. I thought this was good, so I continued. "Anyway, my companion, Amia recommended this book to me and it was just so wonderful and awesome and could only be described as a masterpiece… and now it's right here in front of me." Now Raine had the look of utter confusion and was over the shock. "Vince, do you mean that the personal thoughts of Corwin and Merlin are in this book and that you, Amia, and perhaps half of your world has read it" I nodded "Yup, you pretty much hit the target." "So how did you and her get here then" she asked. "Well, we were in class one day when she sort of trumped me so that I heard her and no one else did. Then we deduced that if we could trump each other Amber must be real, so we used the cover of the book as a trump card to get here and then, well, you know the rest." Raine nodded" I've heard of nearby shadows having the ability to use trump cards, but your shadow earth is a decent way away from Amber. And another thing… the picture and the cover were not designed to function as a trump, which means one or both of you is a descendant of Amber; distant too if it took this long for you to learn how to use a trump." There was a short break in the conversation as all of this rolled over in our minds.

"Raine, don't Amber and Chaos cast the shadows"

"Yes."

"And who populated them"

"Shadows of Amberites and Chaosians I guess... "

"Which means everyone in all of the shadows is somehow related to someone in Chaos or Amber."

Raine sat still. "I never actually bothered to think it out that way... I just never gave shadows that much thought.

"You probably didn't think it was that important, because it's not home to you." Raine looked down at the floor. I took her hand and held it. "Raine" I said"will you take me to see King Random" She nodded and went to the door.

"I'll find some more suitable attire for you."

"Raine"

"Yes"

"Where is Amia"

"Oh, your friend is in the next room."

"Thanks... oh and one more thing." She stared at me with her emerald green eyes.

"You aren't married, are you" She blushed. "No, I'm not." With that she spun on her heel and walked out the door. Then I repositioned myself on the bed and flipped the pillow over to the cooler side drifting off to a deep sleep.


End file.
